Now, that sounds just like exactly what you need to get your business fired up and moving along! But then reality creeps in…

There’s the pressure of creating a fresh, interesting and new idea. You can’t just reach into a magic hat and pull that perfect idea out. Sitting and waiting around for that genius to strike doesn’t seem action-oriented enough for you. You’re ready to get started on what’s next… but you need the idea to begin with, plus the insurance and assurance that it’s a good one.

Then there’s the danger of introducing fresh ideas into your brand. You’ve worked long and hard to build your brand and nurture your fans and clients. So, naturally, you’re worried that you’ll come up with an idea that’s fresh, exciting, new and different, pour your heart and soul into developing it, and do all the incredible work behind getting that idea out into the world… and after all of that, your clients and fans won’t like it.

That they might freak out. What if they don’t like the idea you worked so hard on? Wouldn’t it be terrible if clients who were going to hire you decide, based on your new idea, not to?

Or, worse yet, that your chatty, happy and engaged clients and fans clam up, withdraw and become uninterested and disengaged. Clearly the opposite of what you’re looking for, and a sure sign that you’re on the wrong track.

Why are new ideas so tricky?

Introducing new ideas takes a special mix of ingenuity, bravery and finesse.

Here’s how they work together:

The ingenuity to generate an idea – OK, this is more like “a bunch of new ideas”… so you can have the freedom to create a bucket full of many less-fantastic ideas on the way to one fresh, new, interesting idea. And then you need the foresight, common sense and client-understanding to sort out the good from the not-so-good ideas.

The bravery to launch that idea and incorporate it into your brand and marketing. After all, your brand is precious and you’ve worked hard to build it. Launching a new thing can be both exciting and scary – exciting because you’re proud of your new idea and can see the possibility in it, and scary because you’re not quite sure how your clients and contacts will react to it. You can cut down on the scariness by selecting a few of your clients and unveiling the idea early, to see how they feel about it and what questions they have. That way, you can fine-tune your idea with their input, to make it make the most sense and impact possible.

The finesse to introduce the idea to your clients in a way that doesn’t freak them out. This is the part that takes the most discipline. You have to roll out your idea in a way that brings your clients along with you and your excitement over it – instead of making them slam on the brakes. That means keeping them comfortable before, during and after your launch – and letting them know whether this is a whole new direction or if you’re still offering the things they’ve gotten used to.

When you bring ingenuity, bravery and finesse along on your quest for new ideas, you’ll find yourself creating the kind of innovative, interesting and engaging ideas that keep your clients coming back for more.

By: Erin Ferree

The jungle is dark, humid and dense. Birds of all kinds sing and call, while other animals rustle through the underbrush. The adventurers hack through the plants with their machetes to blaze a passable trail. It’s hard work, and it had to be done so they have a clear path to get where they’re going.

Is your website like that jungle?

Recently, I met someone at a conference and wanted to learn more about them while following up. So, I carved out a few minutes to check out their website.

I was totally and completely unprepared for what I found there. 87 pages of information about their services. Not 10, not 20… 87.

This is a common mistake that small businesses make – they put all the information they possibly can about their businesses on their website, and make a mega-huge website!

They think that if they just make the information available, then maybe someone… anyone… will stumble upon it and hire them. That they have to put everything they have out there in order to get attention.

And then they’re surprised when their mega-website doesn’t bring them a flood of clients. But here’s what happens: their site becomes dense and thick, and people who come to the site get overwhelmed by all of the information available.

They take one look at your menu – with all the pages and sub-pages (and sometimes even sub-pages) and then they have to make a decision. Will they start to hack their way through the jungle of your website, or will they click away from your site?

You don’t want your client to have to make that decision.

Like those adventurers in the jungle that we talked about earlier, your website visitors need a passable trail through your website. They need that clear path to get them into conversation with you.

When your visitors come to your site, they need to make the transition from finding you, to learning the information they need to know, to contacting you and connecting further. And you want to do this simply and quickly as possible… while keeping their desire and need to talk to you high.

Here are a few quick tips to clear a path through your website that will make it easier for people to go deeper with you:

• Create your website with your ideal clients’ questions and needs in mind – what do they most want to know when they arrive?
• Dedicate some time at least every 6 months to review and prune your site as needed – and to identify areas where you could improve what’s there.
• Remove old offerings that don’t apply to your current genius or your clients’ needs.
• Strive for relevance – don’t treat your website as a trophy case for all you’ve done and developed.
• Keep page counts low, and navigation simple.
• Test shorter-form sales pages against long ones and see what works better for your audience (short is working well these days).
• Swap long ebooks and dense copy for short and snappy video.
• Choose a first step that you’d like people to take in your business and direct the bulk of your website’s energy towards making that happen.
• Be discerning with your copy – if it’s not impactful and interesting, then ditch it (if you don’t want to delete it forever, you can switch the page to a “draft” in WordPress).
• Put only your best work in your blog and/or portfolio. Weed out the rest.
• Focus your efforts on getting visitors to sign up for your mailing list so you can take your conversations further there.

Which of these tips will you start using today to create more connection with your website visitors, and to clear their path to working with you?

By: Erin Ferree

Do you ever feel like your brand’s a little bit chilly? Like it’s too professional or boring? Or you’re distant… not as cozied up and close with your clients as you’d like to be?

Why not warm it up a bit? Warmth in your brand can make it seem more alive, open, passionate, and even both interesting and interested. The warmth is a sign that your small business is run by a real person and that you care about your clients.

A warm brand also does a lot for your client relationships. Warmth will create a better connection with your clients, make nervous, shy or hesitant clients feel welcome and at home buying from you, encourage engagement and conversation around your brand, foster goodwill and up your likeability factor. It can also increase your client attraction significantly, because people are attracted to warmth and openness – instead of feeling shut out in the cold.

In this season of open houses, holiday parties and rekindling relationships… you can learn a lot about warming up your brand from the parties you go to. The best holiday parties create a natural, easy “warm and fuzzy” feeling in everyone’s hearts.

Here are a few ways that you can create that feeling in your brand for your clients:

• Focus on how you want your clients to feel. Parties create an emotional experience – they create happiness, celebration, closeness or even reflection. Instead of trying to tell your clients just what’s happening, or how it happens… use words and images in your brand to evoke a specific feeling.
• Design your brand to create conversation. Whether or not there’s great conversation at your party depends on a few factors: lighting, music, whether you have games or dancing, and how comfortable your guests are talking to each other. If you want to create conversation in your brand, design opportunities to start and encourage conversation. To make this happen: ask questions. Create open-line teleconferences. Hold a “fireside chat” where the focus is more on talking and less on teaching. Introduce and connect your clients to each other to create community.
• Bite-sized nibbles (of information) are the way to go. Unless you’re at a sit-down dinner party, maneuvering with a plate full of food can be tough – and it’s even harder to enjoy what you’re eating. In your business, how are you filling your clients up with information instead of breaking things down for people so that they can enjoy it one bite at a time? It’s tempting to show off all of your expertise and information, but that can make it harder for your clients to learn. One of the greatest ways you can serve your clients is by breaking things down and making it easy for them to learn, understand and use.
• Be upfront about what you expect your clients to do. When you’re invited to a party, it’s natural to ask, “what can I bring?” Clients want to know what they need to bring, too. For example, when I design a website, I let the client know what they’re expected to bring to the table – like website copy, website hosting, their headshot. I even provide a handy checklist so they can work through it and make sure they’re organized. How can you do the same in your business?
• Welcome a new client warmly in their first moments with you, and let them know what to expect. When you show up at a party, the host says hello, tells you where to put your coat, shows you around and makes sure you’ve got your first drink in-hand. How are you settling your clients – and even your subscribers – in? And how can you make that part of the experience better?

These are just a few of the lessons you can learn from a holiday party about warming your brand up. As you go to parties this season or reflect on those you’ve been to, what lessons do you see that you can implement now in your brand?

By: Erin Ferree

Are you “marketing at” your precious potential clients or connecting with them? In other words, do your marketing efforts feel more like you’re shouting at them with a megaphone, or like you’re having a two-way conversation?

We all have a craving for connection and conversation – for that rich, recognition-filled two-way exchange of thoughts and information.

That goes for both YOU and your potential clients… in fact, the effect can be multiplied many times over for your clients.

Feel into how much you want to be in conversation with your potential clients. How much you’d like to be on the phone with them, or talking face-to-face.

Now, imagine how much they want to be in conversation with you. After all, they’re already listening to you. I suspect many of them are yearning to be heard, to have their questions answered and to really talk to you.

Here are two traits you can use to open the conversation in a refreshing way…

Curiosity:

Have you ever really stopped to wonder about, listen to and ask your potential clients about what’s going on for them?

This goes beyond a casual, “Hi, how are you?” at the beginning of your newsletter – where you’re not actually expecting an answer.

It’s time to think about who your potential clients are, ask about what they’re up to, and explore their thoughts and feelings.

Look at them as more than just a potential project. Open up a conversation with the full intent of simply learning more about them and getting to know them – not seeing how you could help them, or looking for a need.

What you can do – ask real, specific questions in your newsletter and assure people that you really do want to know the answer. Offer opportunities for your potential clients to speak with you on Q&A calls, during call-in “office hours” or even by appointment for a short, focused session – where you’re asking them questions.

Generosity:

When was the last time you gave your clients a truly free and fantastic gift?

People love presents – when they’re real, useful, desirable gifts. Too many “free gifts” in the Internet marketing world are not really gifts at all, but thinly veiled sales pitches that people have to sign up for.

I realize this has become common practice… and there’s certainly a time and place for that in a marketing strategy… and, at the same time…

Why not give a valuable, amazing free gift that they really want, that they can use immediately and digest fully, and get deep value from? They’ll really notice and be impressed by a gift that fills a real need – that doesn’t simply open them up to a new need or shine the light on some gap or deficiency in their approach.

And, when was the last time that you gave something away that was really free? I mean that there’s no hoops to jump through and no forms to fill out. That you are giving to them with the true energy of gifting. Because you have created this gift especially for them, and you want them to have it – not because you want anything in return.

Try this – create a short and impactful free report. Tell your clients all about how to do one small, specific task. Give them resources or point them to tools. Package that gift lovingly. And then send it to all of your clients and invite them to send it to everyone they know. Include a two-line invitation to learn more at the end, plus a one-paragraph bio so that new people can get to know you. See what happens!

There is one final thought I’d love to leave you with – both of these traits need to be backed by genuine interest and attention, of course.

By: Erin Ferree

Do you ever feel like your brand is out of alignment with your values system? Like you have to do things in your marketing that you wouldn’t want your mother or your mentor to see?

If you said “yes”, I’m curious: why is your brand icky?

Your brand is made up of the look, the feel and the experience of doing business with you.

Does it look like a mess? Is your design all over the place? Have you outgrown them and become more sophisticated and evolved?

Does it feel pushy or sleazy? Are you using tactics that you think you need to use to make sales? Do you find that when you market, you wind up feeling like a slimeball?

Is the experience in your brand one where your clients feel comfortable, cherished and welcomed? Do they understand what’s going on every step of the way with you, so that they know how to make the most of their time working with you? Or do they feel like you’re just trying to get them to buy, and then rushing through the deliverable so you can move on to the next client?

In any case, an icky brand is no fun. It’s gross and uncomfortable, for both you and your clients.

Join me in stamping out ickiness in branding.

Your brand should represent you with integrity and make you proud. Your marketing should make your precious, ideal clients feel special, honored and seen. And once you welcome new clients in, they should be made comfortable and really taken good care of – throughout the process of working with you.

What if you could move away from the icky energy of trying to ”make” them click this, opt-in, buy from you, or rush through your service delivery, and create a brand you’re proud of and that your clients love?

Here’s 3 ideas for how you can create your ick-proof brand:

Brand from your values. There’s a lot of talk about creating a brand that “targets a niche” or “stands out”. While those are both things to consider, they’re certainly not the place to start from in your brand.

With standing out and branding for your clients, then you’re reaching outside of and shining the light on things outside yourself. Which are both important perspectives to consider in your brand, this leaves out the most important part of your brand of all – aligning your brand with your values.

Your values – what you think is right and what you think is wrong – show up in your brand in a lot of ways: They show up in your:

• Core positioning: What you and your brand stand for.
• Words and tone: How you speak about your beliefs and the level of passion and conviction you convey.
• Consistency: If you’re not in alignment with your values, your brand will be inconsistent and all over the place. Once you’re aligned, consistency becomes easy.
• Affiliations and recommendations: Are you promoting for profit or because the people you recommend will help your clients?
• And, really, everywhere and all throughout your brand.

Know that you’re not strapped into your brand’s look forever. If your brand’s look has gotten messy, your business has outgrown your brand, then never fear! You can always evolve and change your brand to make it look as good as possible, and to match the current level of sophistication in your brand.

There’s a common belief about branding – that when you design your brand, you’re stuck with it for life. There’s nothing that could be further from the truth.

In fact, here’s the thing… when you’re an evolving, growing, learning entrepreneur who’s always going deeper into how you serve your clients, I don’t think that it’s possible to design your brand at the beginning and then have it be relevant for the life of your business.

You’re learning, growing and changing. Your clients are becoming more sophisticated as they work with you. Your brand needs to grow and change with you as you evolve, and as they grow with you – to keep up with how awesome you’ve become.

Your charge is… to evolve and stretch it with care and in a way that keeps your clients comfortable.

Take excellent care of your clients after they buy. The emphasis in branding is on marketing and selling. This approach doesn’t take into account the most important part of your brand – the experience that your clients get with you after they buy your services.

There’s a statistic that 20% of your clients will make up 80% of your business. That’s a comfy place – where you’re serving a small, close-knit group so well. You can really transform them!

In order to make that magic ratio happen, you’ve got a responsibility to your clients – you’ve got to induce mutual comfy-ness. Make them feel welcome and secure, and like they know what’s going on throughout the process with you – so they can surrender their trust to you.

These 3 ideas will give you a solid, non-icky start to creating a brand that’s inviting and welcoming.

If you want to get your hands on 10 more ways to create an ick-proof brand that invites your clients in to work with you, head over to http://brandstyledesign.com to download a free party favor from me!

By: Erin Ferree

Sometimes one little letter makes all the difference.

This is a story about a typo. A simple typing mistake, that’s so wonderful – I have tears of gratitude in my eyes from the relief it’s brought.

Let me explain… it’s all about the difference between inciting and inviting.

I’ve been trying to be “A Marketer” for years. Instead of being a design innovator, a creative thinker, a break-the-mold genius like I’d set out to be when I started in on this business extravaganza, I thought I had to market and convince people to do business with me.

And, somehow, I thought I had to do marketing in the standard way. Because I thought that was the way that things had to be if I was going to be “in business”. Especially in “this economy”.

And it’s always felt icky.

 Because being “A Marketer” asks you to incite your ideal clients: meaning to goad an individual or a group to take some action or to express some feeling.

”To goad” means, literally, “To prod or urge with or as if with a long pointed stick.”

Ew! 

Seriously, that just feels kind of slimy.

Yet, I want to be heard. I want to be seen. I want to be understood. So that my thinking and my message can get out into the world. And in the world of business, that means marketing – in a different way.

I don’t want to get what I want by inciting. It doesn’t work for me.

I want to invite.

To ask my wonderful, perfect clients and future-clients to come over and play with me.

Just look at the gorgeous things that “invite” means:

1. To request the presence or participation of in a kindly,courteous, or complimentary way, especially to request to come or go to some place, gathering, entertainment, etc.,or to do something: to invite friends to dinner.

2. To request politely or formally: to invite donations.

3. To attract, allure, entice, or tempt.

I suspect that I’m not alone. Not by a long shot.

If you want to leave the icky energy of inciting behind, and start inviting your ideal clients to work and play with you, then please join me!

Stop goading and poking at your precious, lovely clients-to-be in your marketing. Start inviting and encouraging them to come.

Pretend your business is a party and ask your clients to come be your guest and enjoy themselves. Make sure everyone feels welcome and comfortable, and that you’re being charming and engaging. Talk “with” them instead of “at” them. You’ll see the energy turn around and I’d be willing to bet that you’ll all start having more fun in the process.

By: Erin Ferree

Do you ever feel like instead of moving forward with your brand and your business, you’re stuck and you’re going around and around in circles with your confusing brand?

That your brand doesn’t communicate, doesn’t convert sales and is a bit of a mess?

What if I could show you how to easily get unstuck and create a brand that works? One that helps you get more clients, make sales and makes your business profitable.

The first step in creating a brand that converts is to get clear. Without clarity, your brand is going to be confusing and too complex for your ideal clients to really understand what you offer. And, without clarity, your marketing and promotion – and, even just telling other people what you do – will be way too hard.

Let’s look at the first baby steps towards getting more clear:

1. What part of your brand are you unclear about? Your brand has several distinct parts: your message, your value, your differentiation, your personality and your service offering. Your brand also has to communicate clearly to your ideal client, so you have to know who they are and what they want. Which parts of your brand are you unclear about?
2. How is your lack of clarity showing up? Lack of clarity can show up in several ways: by being confusing, by saying too much and making your brand complex, by being too professional, by not choosing a specific ideal client to work with and by changing too often, so that your clients feel like they’re not sure what you’re doing. Which of these shows up in your unclear brand?
3. How can you start changing that? You’ve identified which part (or parts) of your brand you’re unclear about, and how your lack of clarity is showing up. Pay close attention to the areas you’ve identified, and notice as you see your lack of clarity come through in your marketing and conversations. As you go along, also note when you do feel clear in those areas – or when you’re having a chat with an ideal client and they are understanding you well. Use those improvements in your brand to make “baby steps” towards your clarity.

Even if you get 5% more clear in your brand, you’ll have made progress in the right direction… and you can keep using these tools to make more improvements and getting more clear as time goes on.

By: Erin Ferree

“What do you do?”

Such an innocent and curious question! And in the small business world, it’s where so many conversations go horribly wrong.

As the other person starts to answer, a funny thing happens. The conversation starts spinning out of control. Maybe they’re talking too much. Maybe they don’t really know how to answer. Or perhaps they decide, on the spot, to make up and “try out” a new reply they’ve never given before.

In any case, the person who asked the question in the first place goes from curious to confused, and starts looking, desperately, for the door.

Don’t be the business owner who’s confusing the nice, curious people you’re meeting. Here’s a handy guide to the 3 kinds of confusing brands and what to do about each one:

1. The “Talking Too Much” Brand

We’ve all seen this Confusing Brand in action.

When you meet the “Says Too Much” Brand Owner at a networking event, and innocently ask them, “What do you do”… you get back an entire novel!

They tell you all about the dozens of things they can do. Then they tell you their entire personal story. And their plans for the future. They just keep talking and talking!

And you’re wondering… what are they really trying to say? How can they be good at all the things they’re talking about? Are they just desperate for business? And… most importantly… how can I get OUT of this conversation?

You’re not engaged or interested in what they’re saying. They’re talking so much that you can’t even remember where they started. They’re making a terrible first impression. And you’re both wasting your time.

If you’re the “Talks Too Much” Entrepreneur, you need to focus your brand message down to what’s really important, unique and interesting for your ideal client. Be precise and extremely clear with your message. You need to learn how to say enough to create interest, hunger and desire… and then stop there! (I bet you never thought I’d tell you to stop talking about your brand!)

2. The “I Don’t Know” Brand

You’re unsure about what your business is all about, or what you stand for.

You don’t have a really clear picture of who you want to work with (really, you’d work with just about anyone who’d pay you!). You know you want great clients in your dream business but don’t know exactly what that means to you!

You don’t know what to do or say in your brand or your marketing. You spend a lot of time thinking about what to write or stressing about what to say.

You may spend a lot of time looking at other peoples’ marketing “just to get ideas” or modeling other peoples’ messages or programs instead of creating your own stuff and getting it out there.

You may even try to find a mentor to give you an idea – or even ask them to just tell you what to do. The problem with that is that then you’re running your business based on someone else’s vision, which you may not clearly understand, yourself – and your clients can see right through that. You’ll look fake and phony!

You need to figure out what’s really important and unique about what you do. You need to answer those questions for yourself and own it with confidence so that you can express what their business is all about.

3. The “Reinventing The Wheel” Brand

You’re constantly trying out different things in their brand. Reinventing the wheel.

This is the most exhausting kind of Confusing Brand to have.

You keep changing your message, your offerings, your services, and your title. You change their web site over and over again.

You’re reinventing the wheel because you aren’t deeply committed to what you’ve been doing. You don’t feel like you’ve found “your thing” yet.

You know that you’re supposed to be launching products and marketing things, and you need to make money… so you just keep making up new stuff as you go along.

You feel like nothing’s working. You keep trying so hard and not seeing results. People never seem to buy the stuff you put out there.

And you’re so tired from coming up with new stuff all the time! You’re a little burnt out and crispy around the edges.

To get clear, you need to make a commitment. To put your stake in the ground and claim your space. To choose one direction to go in, make a plan and stick with it for success.

If you confuse your clients or yourself when you try to answer the question, “What do you do?”, then you’ll have a harder time getting clients, doing your marketing and making money. Figure out what kind of Confused Brand you are today and start getting clear now!

By: Erin Ferree

If the next person who visited your website could only do one thing there, what would you want that thing to be?
 Having one main thing for your visitor to do on your website is a powerful strategy that will help you get better results for whatever is most important on your website.

It’s easier for you to do “One Thing” well. Trying to write copy, design a marketing strategy and create a business strategy around way too many things is a lot of work – and if you’re doing too many things, you can’t do any of them as well as they need to be done.

It’s easier to get your visitor to do “One Thing”. If you’re offering one clear choice of what to do next, then your visitor can see what they’re supposed to do, how to do it, and make just one decision – instead of deciding between too many things.

It’s easier to get people to talk about  “One Thing”. You want people to help you spread the word about what you’re doing, right? Giving them one clear thing to talk about can help get the word out farther, faster and to make sure the message that’s going out from all of the people who are talking about you is consistent and clear.

And, focusing on one thing doesn’t mean that they’ll only do  “One Thing” with you. It simply gives them a starting point. You can still offer many things, and serve people in many ways – but you just don’t confuse or overwhelm them with that up-front.

Here’s an assessment to see if your site is well designed to harness the power of ”One Thing”.

• How clear is your website that you want them to do that “One Thing”?
• Does that “One Thing” get lost in the shuffle of everything else you’re talking about and offering?
• Can they do that “One Thing” from every page of your site?
• Is your offer for the “One Thing” compelling to your ideal client?
• Have you made your “One Thing” irresistible?
• Is the “One Thing” extremely obvious?
• Does the design around the “One Thing” make it stand out?
• Does the rest of the design on the page encourage the visitor’s eye to move to your “One Thing”?

How easy do you make it for them to do that “One Thing”?

What do you think of the “One Thing” approach for your website?

Do you see how you could apply it to your business?

I’d love to get your feedback and comments!

By: Erin Ferree

I went on a road trip with a friend recently, and even though I was “on vacation”, branding lessons kept jumping out at me. Here are the 3 most valuable lessons we learned about branding on our summer vacation:

1. The first lesson is about using your headshot in your marketing.

At Mount Rushmore, we overheard a little boy talking to his mom: “Those guys on the outside are on money. But who are the other two?”

Of course, he recognized Washington and Lincoln. Their faces are everywhere – and in his experience, they’re the ones on the money that he probably sees most often. More importantly, their faces are shown on the one- and five-dollar bills in a similar pose – so they’re recognizable.

Poor Jefferson and Roosevelt! He couldn’t recognize them because they appear most commonly in profile – on the nickel and dime. When he saw their full face, it didn’t look like the same guy. And, Jefferson does appear on the $2 bill – but that bill is pretty obscure. The kid hadn’t seen those often enough to be able to remember who Jefferson was.

The lesson here? Using a recognizable photo consistently in your brand makes you more memorable. And, being memorable is good for business! Make sure that you use your photo often in your brand, and that you choose a photo that looks like you do in real life!

2. Consistency and repetition stirs curiosity, creates familiarity, heightens suspense, strengthens hunger and desire and inspires loyalty.

And, this works even if the exact same thing isn’t repeated over and over again. For several hundred miles on Interstate 90, there are billboards making all sorts of claims, like:

• “Free Ice Water: Wall Drug”
• “Don’t Miss Out: Wall Drug”
• “Western Art Treasures: Wall Drug”
• “Dinosaurs! Wall Drug”
• “Homemade Donuts: Wall Drug”

I would say, “You get the picture”… but the truth is, you can’t. I could fill pages and pages with all of the messages from all of the billboards. There were literally hundreds of them, stretching over hundreds of miles. And every one repeated the simple phrase, “Wall Drug”.

This is what happened:

• After the first few billboards, we were curious. I got out my phone and Googled “Wall Drug” just to see what they were talking about.
• After a few more signs, we felt familiar with Wall Drug. After all, we’d seen about a dozen signs on top of Googling it. We were experts, and we liked feeling like we knew what the signs were all about.
• With every passing sign the suspense grew. We wondered… are we there yet? How much further?
• After a while, the signs awakened our hunger and desire (I’ll also admit that this was right around the time we started seeing the signs about the donuts). We found ourselves really wanting to go to Wall Drug.
• We went out of our way to go to Wall Drug. The signs had inspired our loyalty and we passed up opportunities to stop at more convenient places so that we could see what all the fuss was about!

Imagine if your brand could get all of those results from a bit of consistency and repetition! Best of all, consistency and repetition in your brand is easy – it just means that you have to use the same messages and designs that you’ve already created again and again. So there’s no new work for you.

3. Using whitespace makes you stand out, and makes your audience stop and really notice.

During our trip, the scenery was really quite green. Green corn. Green fields. Green forests.

Until we reached the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Suddenly, there was a whole lot of white out the window!

That white made the salt flats one of the most remarkable and stunning places we saw on our trip.They really stood out because they were so different from the green, green, green we had been seeing for days.

It made us stop the car and spend some time there relaxing and looking at the scenery – instead of just whizzing by, we really paid attention. Wouldn’t you like your audience to stop and spend more time paying attention to and noticing you?

See how you can incorporate more white space in your brand so that you won’t look like everyone else, trying to cram everything onto a page. It will make your designs look different from everyone else’s and make your clients stop and really look at what you have to offer!

By: Erin Ferree